WEATHER: rolling blackouts along the East Coast

Tue Jul 6 21:59:42 UTC 1999

Due to the heat, high electric use, and the loss of some generators some
east coast power companies are into their reserve limits, which means a loss
of a generation plant will cause an indefinite blackhout.  Several utilities
have started some rolling black outs in their service regions, voluntary
and mandatory load dumping and voltage reductions.  Each 'planned' rolling
black out is expected to last less than 20 minutes, but the electric companies
are warning customers service may be interrupted up to four hours.

The heat is supposed to break this afternoon/evening.  However the front
will bring a line of strong thunderstorms through the east coast, which
creates its own problems.

All of our east coast POPs have stayed up, so far. But several of our
customers have experienced power outages at their sites and some libraries
have closed for the day.
-- 
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
  Affiliation given for identification not representation